Finding You

Chapter 6

17:33. Any second now. I bite on a piece of flappy skin on my dry lips. I pace up and down the airport's floor shaking my arms feverishly, earning weird looks from others who also seem to be awaiting people. I have my own way of dealing with nerves, move along now.

I can't help my restlessness. My sister who I haven't seen in over a year will be coming through the arrival doors at any moment and I feel giddy with adrenaline and excitement.

My head jolts ahead with excitement as I watch the doors open, swarms of people flooding out. I move away from my spot to try and sift through the mounds of people before a brunette catches my eye. Bella.

She seems to notice me around the same time and I watch as her eyes glitter with happiness. Mine blur my vision as I feel tears brimming in them.

"Bella!" I run over to her. She does the same and we meet in the middle. I wrap my arms around her wildly as the happy tears stream down my face. She wraps her arms around my waist and pulls me tightly against her.

"Oh my gosh, Ally," I feel her tears settle on my shirt and I couldn't be more happy in that moment.

"I missed you so much," I tell her in between my sobs.

"I missed you too, Al," she pulls me even tighter and I almost can't breathe, but I don't tell her to loosen her grip.

We stay like this for a few more seconds before we pull away laughing and wipe our tears. I wrap my left arm around her neck as she pulls her right arm back around my waist. I'd forgotten how tall she was. We were exactly the same height now.

"Let's go," I direct her to where I parked, smiling the whole way there.

I unlock the car and put her bag into the boot while she gets into the passenger seat.

"I'm so excited to watch you perform tomorrow. It feels like it's been forever since I've even seen you dance," Bella looks at me while I press the button to start the car.

"Yeah, it was weird starting up again, but it was crazy how natural it felt, as if my body still remembered everything. I hope it goes well tomorrow," I say, nervously tapping on the steering wheel as I exit the parking lot of the airport.

"Of course it will be. You're an amazing dancer, and you've been doing it for so long. You're a natural. I'll be right there as well, so I hope you got me good seats," Bella smirks at me.

"Right in front," I wink at her, waiting a few seconds before continuing, "I'm really happy you're here, Bell."

She turns her head away from her window to look at me again, smiling. "Me too, Ally."

When we get back to my apartment, she hoes upstairs to set her bags down in the guest room while I order Chinese food from UberEats.

"This place looks no different from when I was last here," Bella says as she hops down each step quickly.

"Yeah, I didn't want to change much around. It just didn't really feel right, you know?"

Bella simply nods and sends me a sympathetic smile, but doesn't talk further on the topic, more for my sake than for hers I assume.

Bella and I re-watched all of our favorite movies as a child, including High School Musical and Camp Rock until we realized that it was 2:40am. I have our last dance practice before the performance in less than 6 hours.

That night, Bella doesn't even make use of the guest room. Instead, she snuggles up right next to me and hugs me tightly as she slowly drifts to sleep, and I don't mind in the least. My nightmares have subsided to only about once a week, but they still make me nervous to wanna sleep, for fear of the unpredictability of one of them. I don't want Bella to see one of them. But tonight, I can feel within myself that there's nothing to worry about, because Bella would be helping fight off the demons like she has since we were kids already.